Network refresh, improvement, help...

xXDeltaXx · February 22, 2015

Hi, looking for some network advice... (sorry for the wall)

I'm finding a couple of issues with my current network setup - I think some if them are just me lacking in knowledge / improper setup, but some of them are hardware related... so, I'm looking for a bit of advice on updating and probably some advice on the configuration.

Current setup; Router - PFSense firewall - 16 port unmanaged switch - wired connection to all the computers / laptops / Synology NAS. Full duplex on all connections.

Router: ISP provided (replaced last week), 4x 10/100 ports, 10500 down, 1400 up.

PFSense Firewall: Old computer, single core Celeron @ 2.93GHz, not sure on the RAM size (512 max), old IDE HDD (150GB ish), WAN connection is the motherboards' 10/100 port, LAN port is a gigabit card (only seems to be registering as 10/100...)

Switch: Netgear 16 port unmanaged gigabit switch

NAS: Synology DS213+ with 2x 3TB WD Red drives.

I cannot really do anything with my router, so I'm looking to improve the firewall and NAS (maybe combining into one unit?).The NAS is ok, but it is slow to upload / download from it and I've tried watching videos from it over the network and the stuttering is terrible. I do wonder if it is the way I'm watching it (just using it as a network drive) / possibly that the Red drives are only 5400RPM... The firewall did have 2x gigabit network cards in, but one died - so I had to switch to the motherboard's ethernet port. But the fact it is reading 10/100 on both is a bit weird. I the dashboard isn't showing high usage on anything, but I am seeing a reduction in speed (speedtest.net) when connected via the firewall (9000 down, 1200 up) - I don't know if this can be improved with a better firewall / changing the config, or if this is just a result of using one.

Dumb question time: So, what would be needed (if at all possible) to have the setup work as follows:

Best connection to the Router (it has 2, maybe 3 free 10/100 ports) - can I link multiple for better throughput?

Best configuration for the network: I want the upload / download of a few PCs to be as fast as possible, and the rest of the network not affect them / affect them as little as possible. I want all of them to have good communication to the NAS (the Synology has a single ethernet port). I want to keep a firewalled connection away from the rest of the network (I'd like the connection to be as fast as possible, but not affect the select PCs mentioned above).

Would that have to be a special build combo file server, PFSense box, with a few network ports (and probably a lot of research / some help) - maybe with the Synology used to create / store backups...Or is that whole thing dumb / far too complex for my little mind

TheKDub · February 22, 2015

My suggestion: Upgrade everything you can to 10/100/1000. (You will need to use cat5e cables, if you use cat5 cables then it will only operate at 10/100, and make sure the network cards can handle 10/100/1000)

If your switch is gigabit (10/100/1000), have a single connection from that to your router, then connect everything else to the switch, that way your internal network will operate at 10/100/1000, even though your router only handles up to 10/100.

10/100 = 100mb/s maximum = 12.5MB/s maximum, which could easily explain your issues with videos studdering and such when streaming from your NAS.

and if I am correct, if you have two devices connected directly, and one supports only 10/100, while the other supports 10/100/1000, it will show as a 10/100 connection on both sides.

xXDeltaXx · February 22, 2015

Hi,

Actually, scratch what I had typed just a moment ago...

With the exception of the PFSense firewall LAN port & the router, everything is 10/100/1000. The router is 10/100 and uses a CAT5 cable to connect to the working network card on the PFSense router (gigabit card). Theother gigabit card died, so I'm using the motherboard's 10/100 port and a CAT5e cable to connect to the switch.

The comment above would explain the gigabit card reading 10/100 only. Thanks for making me check how things are connected

All of the computers and the NAS connect to the switch via CAT5e (or better) cables, then the switch connects to the Firewall and on to the Router. I can see the network usage increase when communicating with the NAS, so it is definitely going faster than just the 10/100, but no where near saturating the gigabit connection (via the Network Utilization section of Task Manager).

Some of the cables are home made (CAT7 cable with shieded CAT6 connectors. They have been checked for continuity and that the cables are in the correct order, but is there a good way to check for speed / reliability?